On the final day of our expedition cruise we enjoyed enjoy a final walk on Spitsbergen and, as on every day of this trip, some special wildlife sightings. Our last full day on board started well, with a sighting of a large pod of beluga whales off the port bow.
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A strong contender for the most beautiful city pub in England, the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, commonly referred to as The Phil, has an ornate exterior and an even more stunning interior. There is a large main room, two smaller rooms named for Brahms and Liszt, and highly decorative wood-panelling, stained glass and floor tiles throughout.
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When you only have one day to explore a city, being ‘small enough to be easily understood’ is a real plus point. And one day was all we had, on this occasion at least. But we really took to Helsinki, so maybe in the future we’ll come back for a more in-depth look.
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Overnight the Ocean Explorer had left the smaller islands of Edgeøya and Barentsøya and returned to the main one in the archipelago, Spitsbergen. We rounded its southern tip to moor in the fjord of Hornsund. The landscapes were particularly stunning but for me our arrival here was tinged with a little sadness as it felt as if we were on the home strait back to Longyearbyen.
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Today the weather played a trick on us and pretended that it was still summer. The sun shone and the temperature climbed into the low 20s. Where better to take a walk than in one of our favourite London parks? Well, maybe in two parks!
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On an expedition cruise not everything that is planned can work out quite as expected. We had already seen yesterday how fog could create a change of plan, as we’d been unable to land at Andréeneset on Kvitøya. Today another force of nature was to have a similar impact; not weather but bears!
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We have had plenty of warm September sun this year, but also some chillier days, reminding us that winter isn’t too far away. By the end of the month it was looking, and feeling, quite autumnal. We were home for much of the month but did make our usual anniversary visit to Paris near the start.
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A more low-key day today, after the excitement of yesterday's polar bear encounter. But there were no dull days on this trip and today’s highlight was ticking off another of my Arctic wish-list animals, walruses. The ship travelled south-east during the night to the small island of Kvitoya, the easternmost one in the Svalbard archipelago.
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I wonder what it would be like to live in a town where the sun never sets in the summer and never rises in the winter? A town whose population of 2,400 residents hail from almost 53 different countries? And whose residents stay only for an average of seven years? And how would it feel to have to carry a rifle every time you stepped beyond the town’s limits and to know how to use it against a possible polar bear attack?
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When we decided on August for our Svalbard visit I wasn’t sure whether we would see any pack ice. As the summer progresses the ice retreats northwards, beyond the area our itinerary was scheduled to cover. But on an expedition cruise the planned itinerary can often be abandoned because of weather conditions, wildlife viewing opportunities or other factors.
